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FORMER MEMBER NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATURE 



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VOTES FOR WOMEN 

WHY 



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EDMUND R. TERRY 

FORMER MEMBER NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATURE 



NEW YORK 
NINETEEN SEVENTEEN 



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Copyrighted, 1917 

By 
Edmund R. Terry 



4 

SEP 10 1917 



1238 



Votes for Women, Why? 



CHAP. I 

In answer to a correspondent, a woman, but a 
citizen and constituent just the same, an Assem- 
blyman wrote stating his position upon the 
"Cause": "It may be that the Almighty made 
a mistake in the creation of the sexes. If that 
be so, it is of course the duty of the Legislature 
to rectify the blunder so far as possible. " 

By implication that suggests the sentiment that 
urges too large a number of the suffragists in 
their demands for the ballot; it is not so much a 
desire for the vote "per se", but to have it as a, 
protest against the fact that they are women and 
with a vague idea that its exercise may in some 
way eliminate certain of the differentiations 
between human beings due to sex, and the opera- 
tion of natural laws. 

One of the earliest advocates of "Woman's 
Rights" was Mrs. Doctor Mary Walker. She 
has always insisted that the distinctions between 
male and female should be eliminated. She was 
at any rate consistent, so far as she could be. 
She exhibited the courage of her convictions. 
She assumed those h&bilirrients conventionally 
typical of masculinity. She wore pants — real 
pants — leather boots with legs, Prince Albert 
coat, masculine linen underwear — so far as was 
3 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

apparent — silk hat and a big umbrella with her 
hair cut in manly fashion. Other advocates of 
the cause have not yet exhibited the same sincere 
consistency. At least I have not heard of their 
discarding all feminine fashions and fripperies to 
advance upon the Legislature of any State, clad 
in the garb of mere man. Yet if there be any- 
thing in the equality they claim so strenuously, 
why should it not hold in respect of so superficial 
a matter as that of raiment? 

Dissatisfaction with one's lot, wherever or 
however its lines may be cast, is common to all 
humanity. So it is not to be wondered at that 
at times many women should be dissatisfied with 
their's. Even in the days of Adam — after the 
Fall — there were doubtless times when Eve 
would infinitely have preferred Adam's functions 
to her own, though in those primitive times there 
were no rostrums for her to mount and no other 
dissatisfied females about to foment her unhap- 
piness and discontent. 

Sundry of the marbles brought to the British 
Museum by Lord Elgin from Greece, teach an 
object lesson that is just as pregnant with meaning 
for us moderns as it was for those ancient and 
worthy Greeks whose eyes first beheld the beau- 
tiful and instructive product of the master sculp- 
tor's conception. Whoever he was, his art t 
as art always should be, the wondrous exponent 
4 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

of Philosophic Truth. The frequent occurrence 
of the Amazons in those wonderful " bas-reliefs" 
declare indubitably that the symptoms of Fem- 
inism were not unknown to the artist. The 
thoughful observer will notice that the Amazons 
are all in the prime of life, beautiful in form and 
feature and well fitted to adorn any position in 
life except that which they are represented as 
filling. True, that where depicted astride of 
their spirited chargers, brandishing their spears 
with all the vigor of their physical perfection, 
they do seem irresistible enough. The reverse 
of the picture shows only too clearly the strength 
of their womanly weakness; strong and brave 
though they be, theirs is sufficient of womanly 
nature to work their undoing. Not even the 
stern necessity of war has availed to part them 
from the beauty of their luxuriant tresses. Of 
this fact the rude heroes to whom they are 
opposed have taken a most impolite and unseemly 
advantage; with their brutal hands intertwined 
in and ferociously clutching their beauteous 
locks, they have pulled the battling maidens from 
their horses and are represented as dragging them 
about over the ground, clubbing and despitefully 
maltreating them. 

Thus whenever woman deserting her higher 
sphere and abandoning all the advantages over 
man that the Creator has given her, tries to cope 
5 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

with him in the lower arena of physical and 
material contest, it must usually result in her 
discomfiture and humiliation. 

The movement toward " Votes for Women' ' is 
very largely a manifestation of the same dis- 
torted sentiment, the desire to be like men. 
That it is the feeling that animates consciously 
or unconsciously the greater number of those 
women who demand the vote is evident to every 
one who is in a position to watch their demons- 
trations with intelligent scrutiny. It is true 
that there are some minor influences that con- 
tribute to the support of the cause which will 
be considered later; at present we will take 
the bull by the horns. — I use this expression 
by way of concession to the feminists, — and 
consider first this fundamental aspect of the 
question. There are many little things that tend 
to show the drift, the desire to get away from 
anything that makes a distinction between the 
sexes. There are no more doctresses, now they 
are all doctors. Even spinsters are vanishing 
and bachelors are taking their places. How 
many bright girls would toil through a college 
course for a degree of "Spinster of Arts" or spend 
further years to be dubbed "Mistress of Arts"? 
In a sense it is true that there is no sex in intel- 
lectual attainments. In another sense it is one 
of the most pernicious falsehoods ever uttered. 
6 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

Where women devote themselves to study from a 
fondness for learning, it is a noble pursuit. Where 
it is merely to put themselves in the same category 
as men, it is a mistake. 

A woman may become masculine, but never 
manly. 

A female Senator from a suffrage state put the 
situation very aptly. She disclaimed the honor- 
able title of " Mrs. " though she was also a Mother, 
and insisted upon being addressed by the merely 
political title of Senator. 

As a member of the Legislature of my state, 
I have seen the women as they have come, year 
after year, to "battle" for the cause at the state 
Capital, and my own observation, reinforced by 
that of others, has been that year by year they 
have been losing that subtle distinction from men 
that has always given women a sovereignty of 
their own more impregnable than they can ever 
gain from the political recognition which the 
suffragists demand. Nevertheless they are con- 
sistent, for the only way in which the equality 
they claim can be brought about is by reducing 
women to the level of men, and in that they are 
succeeding. One of them whom I remember, at 
her first appearance as a modest, attractive, 
womanly woman, had become decidedly masculine 
the last time I met her. She said to me moreover, 
" We are tired of hearing of 'woman's sphere'. 
7 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

We do not want to be on a pedestal, we want to 
get 'down* from it and be just like men!" 

The very proposition the suffrage women 
brought to the Legislature was that the Consti- 
tution of the State should be altered by the 
excision from it of the word "male, " and a further 
absurd change purporting to put upon women 
the same military duties. 

It is also very significant that the slogan of the 
" cause" is no longer "Female Suffrage." There 
is some subtle significance in that word "female, " 
by reason of which its use seems to produce an 
effect upon a suffragist similar to that produced 
by waving a red flag before an excitable bull. 
At all events, it is now " Votes for Women. " Now 
what do these things betray on the part of those 
responsible for them if not a contempt for the 
functions for which women are so especially 
endowed and an undue exaltation of those func- 
tions and attributes usually accorded to and 
exercised by men? 

Some of the most unpleasant passages in history 
are those where rampant ' 'Feminism" has been a 
considerable factor, as in the French Revolution 
and in the time of the decadence of the Roman 
Empire. 

In the light in which the foregoing would 
seem to put it, this foolish demand for "Votes for 
Women" is not so much a logical demand for the 
8 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

rectification of an unjust condition, but rather a 
sort of unthinking, hysterical protest against the 
fact that the God of Nations has made them 
women. 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



CHAP. II 

There is every reason why women should glory 
in their own sex and more particularly in those 
"old fashioned" functions, peculiarly its own and 
that so effectually differentiate them from men. 
It is conceded at once that there are few, if any 
pursuits or callings in which women may not hold 
their own with men or even excel them. We had 
in our family a cook once — her day with us was 
providentially brief — who would have been more 
than a match for Jesse Willard in the roped arena. 
Nevertheless the pre-eminence of the sex comes 
not from any ability in the prize-ring, nor in any 
other of man's pursuits, but from those delicate, 
elusive, priceless, feminine qualities, all the more 
effective if supported by ample physical strength 
and enhanced by mental cultivation, that should 
ennoble all women and that motherhood brings 
to full development and beauty; qualities that 
too much contact and attrition with the busy 
world can only blunt and atrophy. 

The question is, not can women do men's work, 
but rather shall they do it to the prejudice of those 
greater functions that they alone can exercise. 
Should a woman, gifted with a wonderful soprano 
voice, waste her life trying to sing bass ! 



As a rule, physical differences among men are 
10 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

accompanied by corresponding mental differences. 
No man differs from any other man physically 
so fundamentally, as does any fully developed 
woman from any perfect man. There is a cor- 
responding mental difference perhaps at times 
rather intangible, but nevertheless real. The 
great poets and dramatists of ancient times and 
all the great poets, dramatists and novelists since, 
both men and women, testify to this and after 
the present flurry is over, will continue to do so. 
This difference implies no superiority of one sex 
over the other. There are also many immaterial 
functions that both share; yet to each, particularly 
to woman, there are higher and nobler functions 
in which the other has no part. Gold is different 
from iron; each is valuable in distinctive ways, 
but it is an economic waste when one is used for 
any purpose to which the other is best adapted. 
From the results it would seem doubtful 
if many of the womens' colleges carried their 
teaching of Political Economy far enough to in- 
culcate this truth. 

Even before birth it would seem as if the 
Creator had bestowed more care on the girl 
than on the boy. She is born more intricately 
made physically and finer mentally. What has 
gone to fineness in her has gone to strength in 
him. As they grow to maturity, these physical 
and mental differences are normally accentuated. 
11 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

He becomes more and more masterful and her 
femininity grows apace. Finally when man and 
woman meet in fulfillment of their eternal des- 
tiny, it is the man who conquers, the woman 
who surrenders. The fundamental difference 
between them is conclusively shown also by 
the natural results. These to the woman are 
permanent physical and mental changes and 
immediately anxiety and trouble, temporary 
physical and mental disability and finally agony 
and peril. But the man is immune from any 
physical consequences. There is no marked 
change in him, even mentally. This may be 
unjust to women and unfairly upset that equality 
that ought to exist between all human beings, 
and it certainly seems as if there should have 
been some way provided for the perpetuation 
of the race that did not involve so cruel a disparity. 
Nor can the various methods of birth control 
abate the difference. At best they result in the 
physical deterioration of the women who employ 
them. 

Nevertheless, unpleasant as the fact may be, 
the sexes, each with its peculiar characteristics 
and Umitations, are under existing natural laws, 
essential. This is a primal fact and must be 
borne in mind in the consideration of any question 
pertaining to the mutual relations of men and 
women 

12 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

Immune though he may be from physical con- 
sequences, there is a subtle something in the 
nature of the normal male that compels him to 
stand by his mate, to comfort and soothe her in 
her moments of distress and anguish, and to pro- 
tect and provide for her during her suffering and 
disability. Later to guard and provide for her 
and for their mutual prosperity during their period 
of helplessness and need. This is also the primal 
law of being even among the animals. While 
the female brute is bearing, nourishing, rearing, 
and training her brood, the male, ever alert, is 
guarding and providing for all until the young 
ones have reached a sufficient maturity to take 
care of themselves. With them that period is 
soon reached, the family — if we can so call 
it — disintegrates and the mutual responsibility of 
the parents ceases. 

Mankind, however, is higher than the beasts 
that perish. The more intimate physical rela- 
tions between the human mother and her young 
that establishes the life-long bond between them, 
ends with weaning, while her mental and spiritual 
motherhood, beginning with conception itself, 
brings into play all the tenderest and most beau- 
tiful of these womanly attributes, that nature and 
training have given her, is not even terminated 
by the grave, but its inspiring and ennobling in- 
fluence endures through the lives of her children 
13 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

and beyond. Is there any direction in which the 
finest minds, the broadest educations, the noblest 
characters of womankind can be more wisely 
devoted or more worthily and profitably spent? 

During the entire period of such motherhood her 
functions are domestic or as that word literally 
means, concerned with the home; the father's, 
with the world outside, to wrest from it the means 
to enable her to perform her duties and to protect 
her from all unnecessary contact with it or attri- 
tion by it. The better he performs his duties the 
better can she fulfill her supreme functions of 
mother, wife, and home-maker. From all this 
comes naturally the institution of marriage, recog- 
nized and protected by Government and sancti- 
fied by religion, to the end that human mother- 
hood may be cherished and protected and human 
fatherhood held and constrained to its duty. 

Every good and intelligent woman recognizes 
in marriage the one great refuge and defence of 
her sex against men and any attack upon its in- 
tegrity, whether by individual infidelity or by a 
larger and more insidious aggression; she rather 
than man instinctively resents and eagerly resists. 
The suffrage movement is such an aggression, and 
it is not to be wondered at that most women hailed 
the defeats of the suffragists in the elections of 1915 
as a victory for real women. In New York State 
it certainly was. There the offer had been fre- 
14 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

quently made by the Legislature to the suffragists 
that a special election would be arranged, sur- 
rounded by all known safeguards, at which all 
the women citizens of the State could vote and if 
a majority of them voted for it the necessary 
steps would have been taken to constitutionally 
give it to them. These offers were abruptly 
declined for the reason as given by the suffragists, 
"That they stood no chance of carrying such an 
election." In other words, they acknowledged 
that the big majority of modest, intelligent, 
womanly women were unalterably opposed to the 
"Cause." So it is a mistake to consider it as 
the " Cause" of women; it is merely the " Cause" 
of the suffragettes and is opposed to those things 
dear to the heart of real womankind. 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



CHAP. Ill 

The underlying theory or rather the postulate 
upon which the demand for "Votes for Women" 
is based, is the " Equality of the Sexes." The 
very use of the word "equality" in such a con- 
nection is an error, as used by the suffragettes 
it implies a general similarity of functions that 
does not, never has and never can exist. 

Marriage was established for the safeguarding 
of matrimony — note that word — and is vitally 
necessary for the protection of women and as 
contributing to that, the restraining and cons- 
training of men. Were there no such thing as 
marriage, men would possess women just the 
same, but women would have little, if any hold 
upon men. This consideration manifestly does 
away with the theory of the "Equality of the 
Sexes" upon which the clamor for the ballot is 
founded, for it recognizes the need of women 
for protection. The Institution of Marriage is 
thus inconsistent with the demand of "Votes for 
Women," for it is a negation of the "Equality" 
on which the demand is based. 

Many good and true women temporarily ob- 
sessed with the suffrage craze, are blinded to this 
aspect of the cause or are still too shrinkingly 
modest to wish to even consider it. 

But there are others, restrained by no such 
16 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

feminine timidity who make no bones about their 
opposition to marriage. That is the sentiment 
that is behind their approval of such monstrosities 
of plays as " When Hindle Wakes. " It also finds 
expression in the assertion that the individual and 
not the family is now the social unit, and the 
revoltingly insulting characterization of our 
mothers, wives, sisters and friends who are 
nobly doing their full duty of home-making as 
parasitic women, as "Hareem women, " and 
as lacking in intelligence. 

Now suppose these ideals, these dreams of the 
suffragettes were to be realized; and in all pursuits 
political and otherwise — great and small men and 
women were working side by side on an equality, 
with marriage logically eliminated, "What would 
we have?" 

Mr. Wells, in his novel, "When the Sleeper 
Wakes/' has given a picture of such a social 
state, where in their various callings, there is, 
no distinction of sex, all are working together 
side by side with women doing men's work. When 
a woman incidentally is about to become a mother 
she goes to a state institution, is delivered of her 
progeny and so soon as her health can be restored, 
she resumes her place, whether high or low, in 
the ranks of the workers, while her offspring is 
taken care of scientifically by the state — probably 
under the direction of elderly spinsters who have 
17 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

specialized in the rearing and education of the 
young. In other words " Lambing Stations " such 
as are reported to be covertly maintained in the 
suffragette state of Utah. Rosalie Sadova, a 
leading suffragette, is already quoted as in favor 
of just such state establishments. 

Such is indeed a charming prospect; is it not? 
Yet the reality would probably be worse. 

Were this merely an academic question, its 
discussion would preferably be avoided, but the 
suffragettes themselves have thrust the subject 
upon us. 

June 9th, 1915 at a time when they fully ex- 
pected a wide victory in New Jersey, New York, 
Pennsylvania and other states, the suffragists 
showed their hand. They held a great banquet 
at the Hotel LaSalle at which Doctor Anna 
Howard Shaw, president of the National Suffrage 
Association presided. Prof. W. I. Thomas of 
Chicago University was invited to address the 
assemblage. A large part of his speech was de- 
voted to the right of women to become mothers 
outside of marriage. 

He is quoted as saying, "The child by act of 
birth is made legitimate.' ' The convention took 
no action criticising his views. Anna Shaw's 
comment was, as reported, "Political emancipa- 
tion is not the only emancipation. Women must 
gain a greater freedom of " social" relations." 
18 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

There were others who spoke approvingly, but to 
the credit of womanhood some there were who 
had the courage to protest. 

This sentiment of Thomas' does not stand alone. 
It is merely selected as one of the frankest, most 
pointed and public expression of their opinion 
among the many that have come from leading 
suffragettes. It cannot be emphasized too strong- 
ly that Thomas spoke with the frankness that 
came with exultation over the sweeping vic- 
tory that the suffragists then expected. Under 
such circumstances it was but natural for him to 
betray the real sentiments of those who listened 
to him with applause or approving silence. Now 
what social conditions would the adoption of 
these views lead to! Marriage would then be 
sustained only by Religion; but that too, accord- 
ing to the advanced Suffragettes is also obsolete 
and to be eliminated. Ethics might still survive 
and its teaching might have as much effect upon 
the people as the teaching of that great Ethic, 
Seneca, had upon his prize pupil Nero. 

Now let it be noted that by the suffragists the 
father is ignored as a factor in the bringing up and 
training of the young; this is quite logical, for, 
under the assumed conditions, who would know 
whether he was a father or not? 

It being no longer a disgrace for a woman to 
have a child born out of wedlock, and mothers, 
19 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

in whatever way, being on a social and political 
equality, chastity would come to be considered 
a disgraceful folly; even the offense of rape would 
logically cease to be a felony and be of no more 
moment than any other assault and battery. 
Women could have absolutely no protection as 
a sex; there would then be no reason for it. To 
seek it would be an admission of inequality. 

Suffragists either dare not or do not care to 
consider the effect that the adoption of their the- 
ories would have on men. With the social struct- 
ure as it is to-day, wedded fatherhood raises a 
normal man to his highest possible estate. 

With the responsibilities, the duties, the 
pleasures of fatherhood, practically denied to 
him as it would be in a shared or doubtful pater- 
nity, he would miss the highest incentive and 
stimulus that now can actuate him. There are 
duties and responsibilities that he can not escape 
under the Law that now rest even upon the 
illegitimate father. Marriage to a certain extent 
thus protects mothers who are without its pale. 
It cannot afford to allow men to ignore it without 
penalty. With all protection to women wiped 
out and all restraint as well as stimulus and in- 
centive for men done away with, what social 
organization would be possible? 

It is too gruesome and unpleasant a subject to 
pursue further, but when the suffragettes virtually 
20 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

make free love a part of their propaganda, as they 
undeniably do, it is our duty to look the matter 
squarely in the face and see where it leads to. If 
we find its ultimate aim to be bad, its partial 
success can only be dangerous and demoralizing, 
and it becomes the part of every honest, decent 
man who respects womankind to oppose the 
movement — particularly when it becomes appar- 
ent that " Votes for Women", if gained, will be 
but a stepping stone to something worse. 

The one State in which woman suffrage would 
seem to have been perfectly satisfactory to a 
majority of its citizens is the Mormon State of 
Utah. There they no longer have polygamy 
openly, but only plural, spiritual marriages that 
would seem to answer the purpose just as well. 
In the light of what they have already said, 
many of the leaders of the cause might with entire 
consistency urge the forcing of that system upon 
all the States by a National Constitutional 
Amendment. It would probably meet certain 
hygienic defects that they criticize in the present 
monogamous scheme of matrimony. 



21 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



CHAP. IV 

When I hear suffragettes, male or female, rant- 
ing upon the public rostrum about the inde- 
pendence of women from men, I cannot but 
wonder if they are quite right mentally. Were 
any one to demand the independence of men 
from women I would entertain the same senti- 
ment. Broadly speaking, there is not, and in 
the nature of things cannot be, any such inde- 
pendence. On the contrary, from their very func- 
tions and characteristics there is of necessity a 
mutual inter-dependence between the sexes. 
Aside from the sensual, women depend upon men 
for certain things; men depend upon women for 
certain other things. The wants of each from the 
other are so entirely different that they cannot 
be compared as to relative values and these values 
cannot be expressed in economic terms. Were 
this not the rule of living followed by the two 
sexes — the neuters are very noisy, but should not 
count — the conditions of living would be nearly 
impossible. Writers like Charlotte Perkins, 
Stetson Gilman, either are blind to, or calmly 
ignore, all these things in life that cannot be 
reduced to an economic value expressed in terms 
of dollars and cents. 

In this economic sense, mother-love and the 
reciprocal affection that it awakens is valueless, 
22 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

and it is presumably for that reason that so many 
suffrage writers consider it as negligible or, merely 
silly. 



23 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



CHAP. V 

From the remote beginnings of recorded time, 
winding its beatific way down through the ages, 
the ennobling influence of womanly women has 
ever been working after its own gently effective 
methods for the real upward progress of the race. 
Ever urging their men to the attainment of better 
things. Ever inspiring, fostering and sustaining 
their better faiths, their nobler ambitions. Ever 
sympathetic in victory or in defeat, constant 
always in weal or in woe, such women have been 
the inspiration, the moral support, the spiritual 
mainstay of their men and of the race. The 
results of this influence, so gently exerted, has 
been cumulative, through the eras and to it we 
owe most of those essential blessings that still 
make life better worth the living. 

It is true, there have been also other women, 
many of them, scattered through the centuries, 
whose dissatisfaction with their position and 
general discontent led them to accomplish much 
of harm, little of good, and whose main achieve- 
ment was what such women crave, notoriety. 
It is of such that Horace wrote: "Mulier teter- 
issima causa multi belli." 

Unwillingly, though it was, some of them may 
have been of advantage to the world. Had it 
not been for the railings of Xanthippe her hus- 
24 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

band, Socrates, might never have reached the 
philosophic heights that he did. Yet even she 
was no feminist in the accepted sense. 

But to return to our pleasanter subject. 
Those good women of whose lives and works we 
are the grateful heirs and beneficiaries performed 
their good deeds unostentatiously, they sought no 
publicity, no recognition, but were content with 
the happiness that comes from a consciousness of 
duty well done. Who can measure the effect 
upon human life of the thousands and thousands 
of good, long enduring, intelligent, industrious, 
loving, unselfish wives and mothers and those 
other less fortunate but blessed women who stead- 
fastly through all known time have persistently 
interwoven into the fabric of human existence 
those brighter and happier shades that relieve its 
general gloom. 

Happily for us, however, some have not escaped 
the notice of poet and historian. 

What was the lode-star, the hope, the yearning 
that brought the wily Ulysses safely through the 
perils of his voyage back from Troy? He knew 
that during the long years of his absence Penelope 
would not have retained all the charms of her 
young beauty, but he longed for the flower 
into which he felt such a bud must have devel- 
oped. He wanted to bask in the sweet affection 
of her ripened womanliness, to be again in touch 
25 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

with her subtle feminine intellectuality. To rest 
after all his toils in the house that she had kept 
and maintained for him, and to lean his declining 
years on the son that she had borne and reared 
for him. All these constituted Home, and it was 
for that he had been longing, and she was its 
centre, but till his return it was incomplete; to 
be perfect, the protector was needed. 

The story of Egeria, whether it be fact or fable, 
illustrates the effectiveness of intellectual feminin- 
ty working through a man in so momentous a 
matter as the founding of a great state. She was 
no public character, her confidences were for Ro- 
mulus alone. 

If all that we knew about Cornelia was the 
story that when other women of her rank were 
boasting of their ornaments she brought out her 
two boys with the simple comment, "These are 
my jewels," we would recognize her womanly 
greatness. It was, furthermore, a competent 
mother who spoke. We know of her that united 
in her beautiful person were the severe virtues of 
the early Roman matron and the superior knowl- 
edge, refinement, and culture which even then 
prevailed in the higher classes of Rome. She 
was well acquainted with the literature of Greece, 
and spoke and wrote her own language with 
elegant certainty. 

Left a widow with twelve children she had de- 
26 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

voted herself with all her talents to their educa- 
tion, rejecting all offers of a second marriage, and 
adhering to her resolution, even when tempted by 
Ptolemy, who offered to share with her his crown 
and the throne of Egypt. Hers was no public 
career, but her sons were of Rome's greatest 
orators and statesmen, and when her work was 
finished the Roman people, out of their gratitude 
and respect, erected a statue to her memory and 
upon it inscribed the title of which she in life 
had been justly proud: "Cornelia, Mother of the 
Gracchi." 

Per contra one of the prominent suffragists, 
zealous in the cause of uplifting her sex, when 
asked how she could spend so much time at it 
and also attend to her children, flippantly replied : 
"Oh, those brats! I hire a competent nurse and 
turn them over to her." That is not as bad as 
it sounds, if the underlying theories of the suffra- 
gists be correct; she should be freed from the 
dwarfing and enslaving tendencies of family 
cares. Women like Cornelia were poor, ignorant, 
deluded victims of a system that it is hoped, by 
some, that votes for women will tend to eliminate. 

Among the principal deities worshipped by the 
old Romans, none was more revered or so fre- 
quently sacrificed to as Vesta. She was essentially 
the conservator of sweetness, purity and light, the 
goddess of the home, the guardian and protector 
27 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

of all those subtle, indescribable, lovely elements 
that are essential to a real home and that only- 
women, real womanly women can supply. The 
appreciation of her value to the State as control- 
ling and conserving those priceless feminine quali- 
ties was shown in the character of the public 
worship offered to her. As the home is essentially 
woman's creation — men can furnish the mere 
building and the purchasable accessories, but 
those do not make the home; only a woman's 
loving art employed on the materials can do that. 
So it was that no man had a part in Vesta's rites, 
only women could perform them ; while the sacred 
and Eternal Fire that was her emblem — other 
divinities had graven images — was kept ever alive 
by the ministrations of the Vestal Virgins, and to 
be of that small but select body came to be es- 
teemed one of the highest honors that could come 
to a high-born Roman maiden. To the Vestals 
were accorded honors, privileges and prerogatives 
enjoyed by no other Roman citizens, and it was 
the popular belief that with the extinction of the 
Sacred fire that burned on the altar of Vesta 
would come the fall of the State. And what 
state could or can survive the loss of the reverence 
for homes? Rome did not. The curse of femin- 
ism struck her women. With that came the in- 
evitable loss to them of the respect of men. The 
fires upon the family altars flickered to extinction. 
28 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

As women came more and more to contemn the 
prerogatives that were peculiarly theirs by nature, 
they lost more and more the faculty and the 
desire to make and keep up the homes. When 
women deserted the work for which they alone 
were fitted, there was no one who could take their 
places and homes deteriorated until they were 
mostly such only in name. The salt had lost its 
savor. The social structure lost that upon which 
its stability depended. The inevitable disintegra- 
tion followed and the once mighty City became 
the easy prey of any foe that chose to attack it. 
The early Romans were wise men when they 
gave such prominence to the worship of Vesta, 
the goddess of their homes, wise when they 
thought so much of their protection and main- 
tenance, wise when they gave the government 
and control of their domestic kingdoms or 
principalities to their womenkind; but they 
probably erred by such restrictions in other 
matters as to lead their home-makers to regard 
as an enforced drudgery what should have been a 
labor of love. Yet all through the stormy times 
of the Fall of the Empire there were homes that 
still persisted; had there not been such, Rome 
would have been a worse Hell than it was. 



29 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



CHAP. VI 

Derided and contemned though they may be by 
the Suffragists, homes are and always have been 
as necessary to humanity as nests are to birds. 
Nests, however, are to-day just as they always 
have been while the home of to-day is the result of 
a process of evolution from the most primitive 
shelter. In that process women have had the 
dominant part. Let us consider the normal gene- 
sis of a home — a primitive home. Suppose a 
normal man and a normal woman are cast away 
upon an uninhabited island, so remote that 
rescue or escape from it are practically impossible; 
both are civilized and educated. At first their 
educated natures rebelling against their natural 
instincts will keep them apart — widely apart — 
each content with such temporary shelter as for 
the time being is most convenient, if either has 
a permanent place it will probably be the woman. 
In such a case nature would in time prove to be 
more powerful than any conventions of a distant 
society, and they would come together, a prelimi- 
nary exchange of solemn vows would give to each 
that respect for the other so necessary for lasting 
happiness, and immediately a permanent shelter 
would be desirable as a common meeting place, if 
no more. In its erection he, being the stronger, 
would do most of the work. Its arrangement and 
30 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

plan she would probably direct. That provided, 
at first they would roam about together in hunting 
for supplies, she on the constant lookout for such 
things as might improve or beautify their primi- 
tive abode, while his eyes were directed for sup- 
plies more material. Soon the time would come 
when she no more felt able to accompany him on 
his long and laborious quests, but would remain 
pottering about their place, while he, realizing 
and rejoicing in her condition — we are presuming 
them both to be normal — would redouble his 
efforts to provide her with the necessary food and 
would further exert himself to get such things as 
would please her, all the while trying to devise 
something to add to the comfort of their mutual 
abode. Would it be surprising if she, realizing 
how he was working, took it upon herself to see 
that he had something good to eat? As each 
worked for the other, so would their love and affec- 
tion increase by leaps and bounds — and the ele- 
ments of home grow till insensibly it becomes an 
accomplished fact. 

Presently there is the child, and the happy 
domestic triangle is complete. 

With its advent there comes of necessity a 
change in duties. With the necessary care and 
nurture of the babe, she has now no time for 
matters out of the house, while the proud and 
happy father with the added responsibility has 
31 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

little or no time for anything material inside it, 
so the natural divergence of the parents grows 
into a fixed habit. And the child? Content at 
first with mere existence and perhaps mentally 
too bewildered at the strangeness of his surround- 
ings to take notice of anything, he presently begins 
to observe, and the strange things about him 
begin to have identities. His first conscious 
recognition is of the mother at whose breast he is 
fed. When hungry he turns to her. As he grows 
beyond the need of the material sustenance that 
she gave him, he comes to the need of physical 
and mental guidance. Then for her is the teach- 
ing of language to the puzzled little lips. With 
infinite patience she guides and supports the tot- 
tering, uncertain little footsteps. Thus from the 
beginning of his conscious intelligence he recog- 
nizes her as his best friend, his closest and most 
sympathetic adviser, comforter and supporter. 

It is not only the use of mind and body that 
he learns from her, but if she be a real mother, 
there comes the introduction of his open, grasping 
intelligence to the greater things of life, the spir- 
itual. And the father he recognizes as a clumsy 
being who somehow has the right to take him in 
his arms, kiss him and caress him, and sometimes 
at night to pick him up and carry him about in 
his arms to quiet his infantile terrors or soothe 
his restlessness; he is to him a sort of an assistant 
32 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

to his mother. Later he comes to recognize him 
as the final authority in the household. It is for 
the boy's mental and spiritual health that such 
should be the case. Such are the conditions that 
prevail in almost any normal young family. I 
have supposed the earlier conditions merely to 
show how naturally and, as a matter of course, 
when there is a child, the father and mother take 
their respective positions relative to each other, 
to the child and the home, they all have in com- 
mon. It is natural that the husband's duty to 
the others should keep him outside, wrestling with 
the world to gain for them sustenance and sup- 
port from it. It is natural that the normal affec- 
tions of the mother should keep her busy with the 
internal affairs of the home and with the atten- 
tion required by the precious infant in it, and 
there may come others, but that or they need 
not of necessity check or dwarf her mental prog- 
ress. 

The brainiest, best educated, most cultured 
and most efficient woman I ever knew was the 
mother of eight — and there are others like her. 

The creation of homes is not as some suffragists, 
leading ones at that, claim, that wives and mothers 
shall be immured therein and mentally cribbed, 
cabined and confined, but that in its precious 
confines, with as little as possible from outside to 
interfere with or annoy or disturb, the choicest, 
33 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

dearest, tenderest beauties of her womanhood 
may have full opportunity to bud, blossom and 
bear fruit. 

A contemplation of any bunch of suffragettes 
will serve to emphasize my meaning. 

Now permit me to give one or two choice 
examples of the profundity of official suffragist 
literature, after reading which I have written as I 
have of those ideals and institutions revered by 
most of us that it is the expressed purpose of the 
suffragists to overthrow: 

"The Isolated Household is responsible for a 
large share of woman's ignorance and degrada- 
tion. A mind always in contact with children 
and servants, whose aspirations and ambitions 
rise no higher than the roof that shelters it 5 is 
necessarily dwarfed in its proportions." 
"Co-operative labor and co-operative homes will 
remove many difficulties in the way of woman's 
success as artisan and house-keeper when admitted 
to governing power." 

Now, what do they mean by an "Isolated 
Household?" Why the ordinary homes, whether 
humble or grand, as distinguished from what 
they term "a co-operative home," which, by the 
way, could never have those fundamentals char- 
acteristics of a real home, such a home as is dear 
to the heart of nine hundred and ninety-nine out 
of a thousand. One would presume also that 
34 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

the ambition to be a successful mother was 
no higher than the roof, and was not to be com- 
pared with the nobler ambition, to be a suc- 
cessful artisan or house-keeper! 

In similar vein is the remark attributed to the 
learned Anna Howard Shaw, "I don't believe in 
mother's love, I believe in mother intelligence." 
If she ever really said that, she could not in so 
few words deserve the contemptuous pity of 
every man or woman who has been blessed in 
having an intelligent and loving mother and 
these are but samples of their expressions. 

Easy divorce is another rotten and obtrusive 
plank in the suffragette platform. One necessity 
to a real home is the permanency of the marriage 
relation; but home, like mother's love, is one great 
object of ridicule to a writer whose works have 
been approved and recommended by the National 
American Woman Suffrage Association. 



35 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

CHAP. VII 

The great fallacy permeating much of the suf- 
fragist writings and speeches is that they proceed 
upon the theory that the object of sex is merely 
the gratification of the individuals; it is not. 
That is an incident. 

The perpetuation of the race is its great pur- 
pose. "Society is chiefly concerned with the 
welfare of the children upon whom its future 
depends." The experience of mankind has de- 
monstrated that monogamous marriages for life, 
together with the homes so dear to all of us, except 
the suffragettes, have so far produced the best 
results, and any movement attacking marriage 
and the home, unless it purposes something 
demonstrably better, is misconceived and dan- 
gerous. I have a profound pity and compassion 
for such good women, for there are some such 
among the suffragists — who have been misled by 
sophistries and plain lying, carried away by a 
certain sort of hysteria and an honest, though 
mistaken, belief that votes for women will benefit 
the sex and the country, but only contempt for 
those leaders who know full well whither they are 
leading their deluded followers. 

For the careless thinking men who say, "Oh, if 
women want to vote why let them 11 , I would 
suggest the story of the man in a boat full of 
3G 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



boys on a deep river who said, "Oh, if the boys 
want to rock the boat why let them". He did, 
they had their wish and all were drowned. 

And what shall we say of these . . . (?) 
whether they wear trousers or skirts, who use 
their positions of educational authority to poison 
the impressionable young minds mistakenly com- 
mitted to their training, by the inculcation of 
these subtle doctrines, and by teaching them to 
regard as old fashioned, contemptible, and value- 
less the most precious heritages of humaDity! 



37 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



CHAP. VIII 

The vast majority of women are or will be 
wives and mothers and the vast majority of men 
husbands and fathers, and what is best for them 
and for the future of the race should be our chief 
concern rather than the limited future or welfare 
of the unfortunate minority of both sexes who 
have somehow missed or forfeited the real fulness 
of living. Even for those of them who are women, 
there are under existing conditions no limitations 
set to their activities, except as to elective political 
offices, by any laws except those of nature, and those 
cannot be repealed even by unanimous popular 
vote. Even were they given the ballot it would 
only serve to exclude them from many oppor- 
tunities that are open to them as women. For 
instance, take Katherine Bement Davis, simply 
as an able public spirited woman she holds and 
has held distinguished public offices, irrespective 
of politics. As a mere voter she would be simply 
a partisan with her future circumscribed by the 
success or failure of the party she has espoused — 
if I may use that word in her case. She is but 
an example of many others. 

On the other hand, there are many thousand 
wives during the progress of every campaign 
whose physical condition is such that common 
humanity and decency dictate that they should 

•■> o 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

be protected from all that might excite or annoy 
them. To those who know politics, particularly 
women politics, is there any doubt that in the 
event of a close contest at the polls all such pro- 
tection would be swept away if such women had 
votes to cast? That reason by itself should deter 
men from voting for suffrage. 



39 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



CHAP. IX 

Now what are some of the characteristics of 
the women who demand the vote? 

They are a noisy crowd; in fact it is doubtful 
if any other body of women could be found who 
could make so much noise in proportion to their 
numbers. The recklessness with which they 
treat the rights of others is appalling. Their 
obstreperousness is simply unholy. Their self- 
respect difficult to place. Their acquaintance 
with logic or real facts very cursory. Their regard 
for the truth practically burned out by the fervor 
of their imagination. 

In fact their general character too generously 
displayed is such that we might begin to feel as 
M. Tullius Cicero, the orator did when he ex- 
claimed, "How long, oh Cataline, will you abuse 
our patience?" 

I admit there are some nice, charming, clever, 
respectable, quiet women in their ranks — perhaps 
many such. How they can be there I cannot 
explain, except that they are women, and as has 
been well said, "The ways of women are like those 
of Providence, inscrutable. " 

It may not be unprofitable to consider here 
somewhat of the personnel, the manner and kind 
of women who compose the suffrage cohorts. 

Among the leaders are some with large expe- 
40 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

rience and an over-abundance of money, who 
might have been better, happier and more con- 
tented had they had less of both ; as it is they have 
gorged themselves to repletion with all the pleas- 
ures money can buy or the gratification of their 
senses produce. To escape from ennui they 
want the fierce excitement of contest and they 
seek it through the advocacy of the Cause. 
Some there are who having reduced their husbands 
and families to subjection are now anxious to 
extend their sway to other fields. Others are 
simple non-conformists; there is a similar class 
among men who are opposed to any existing order 
of things because they verily believe that whatever 
is — is wrong. Others again have successfully 
advocated matters that were meritorious and are 
now settled; but their zest for advocacy is una- 
bated and unwilling to rest, they have cast in 
their lot with the suffragists. Others inflamed by 
stories of injustice in other states are fighting 
imaginary evils elsewhere. 

Others are in their ranks because it brings them 
into close contact with women of note that other- 
wise — they would not meet. A very large number 
as we have seen, probably a majority of them, 
demand the ballot because they abominate being 
women and think that that will make them more 
like men. Most of them are more like men now, 
than they realize. Others, again, court the 
41 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

specious distinction that mere notoriety confers, 
and it is amazing how many have attained a quasi 
prominence by their notorious and unblushing 
advocacy of suffrage and feminism, while some, 
a very few, have found in it the chance that had 
failed them elsewhere and got married. 

Then there are those who think that it, in some 
mysterious way, will revive drooping chances in 
their ill-chosen careers. A very large and pro- 
tuberant contingent comprises those whose great- 
est delight in life is to speechify before large and 
sympathetic audiences. While some are wedded 
to the cause, in despair of ever being wedded to 
anything else. 

But, taking the whole motley crowd together, 
they are of little real value to themselves, to their 
sex or to their country when compared with those 
other women who are steadfastly and devotedly, 
in their varying circumstances and environments, 
living true to their sex, true to its noble purpose, 
the betterment of the race; even though the 
happiness of motherhood has been denied to many 
of them. 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

CHAP. X 

Aside from their assaults upon marriage, home 
and motherlove, as obstacles that bar the way to 
the accomplishment of their purposes, what are 
some of the many reasons the suffragettes of both 
sexes give for depriving the great body of women 
of the right not to vote? 

Many of them are unanswerable. That in 
mid-winter a number of women should wade 
several hundred miles through mud and slush; 
that thousands of dollars worth of ornaments, 
that priceless heir-looms and invaluable relics 
should be thrown into a cauldron to be fused and 
cast in an imitation Liberty Bell; that disorderly 
crowds of them should interfere with the orderly 
working of legislation; these and other like per- 
formances may be arguments. If they are, 
I know of no answer to them. 

A procession is not an argument. Nor in these 
days of millions of people gathered in one city, 
does it really prove much, if anything, except on 
rare occasions. When, as a spontaneous outburst, 
one hundred and forty or fifty thousand men 
march in voluntary procession up through the 
main thoroughfares of New York City it is very 
significant. But when after months of more or 
less praiseworthy recruiting, all over New York 
and other adjacent States, they can only get 
43 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

together some twenty or thirty thousand women 
at the most in a procession to exploit the Cause, 
one is immediately struck with wonder that con- 
sidering the vast body of women drawn from the 
number of marchers is so few. 

As for the public interest awakened, as mani- 
fested by the crowds of spectators, it is well to 
remember that any big circus parade will attract 
as great or greater crowds, particularly if they 
have on exhibition a few r ponderous elephants, 
pachyderms, giraffes, or camels, and lovely 
women on horseback, dressed like men, cavorting 
about. 

The "antis" do none of these things, and yet 
their representatives duly carry out their wishes 
at the polls, if not in the Legislature, and for the 
safety of the state will continue to do so, it is to 
be hoped. 



44 



VOTES FOR WOMEN. WHY? 



CHAP. XI 

Let us now consider some of the more important 
of their more articulate reasons, that are not quite 
so evidently mere ebullitions, of plain Feminism. 

They urge as one that women pay taxes, but 
do not vote, and that there should be "No taxa- 
tion without represent ation." When they under- 
take to couple that expression with their demand 
to vote, they ascribe to it a meaning that it never 
had when it was used as a sort of slogan at the 
beginning of the War of the Revolution. The 
colonists' grievance was that they were as a com- 
munity to get nothing, no benefit from the taxes 
that were exacted from them. That they were 
being exploited for the benefit of some English- 
man at home in England without any regard for 
their own interests or their own rights and that 
their wishes in the matter had never been con- 
sulted or considered; that this treatment was like 
that of a conquered province; against such condi- 
tions they rebelled very naturally. All that they 
demanded was that their interests should be con- 
sidered and protected and their rights recognized. 
The form and manner of that protection and 
recognition, they did not prescribe; they did not 
demand the ballot. That was all there was to 
that. Now it may be pertinent to observe just 
here that there never lived a more forceful, intel- 
45 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

ligent or capable lot of women than those revolu- 
tionary women who had aided their men most 
efficiently in wresting from savage men and 
savage nature the homes and property they en- 
joyed. From all accounts there was little that 
got by them. 

Had women, such as the mother of Washington, 
and she was typical of her sex in those heroic 
days, felt that their rights and interests were not 
safely and properly represented by their men, 
they would have demanded the vote and got it, 
then and there. They had a power that only 
those who preside over homes can ever attain to. 

I would suggest to suffragette orators and 
writers that they consult more carefully the 
records, speeches, and documents of the Revolu- 
tionary period before making a further use of 
this slogan as an argument. 



Again with an air of profound conviction they 
assert that: " Government should be by the con- 
sent of the governed." 

In this country the government is the rule of 
the majority. Now the suffragettes ask that the 
vote be conferred upon women as a body — they 
talk about the millions of enthralled women in 
this country. They seem to make it a point not 
to ask for it individually but as women, repre- 
senting women in their totality. Now the ma- 
46 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

jority of women in this country are opposed to it. 
They do not consider themselves enthralled, theirs 
is too much of self-respect. There is not a State 
in this Union, except Utah, in which the women 
leaders are willing to leave the settlement of the 
question to the arbitrament of their own sex. 

Taking then women as an entirety, we find the 
disagreeable condition of a small but noisy and 
unscrupulous minority trying to bully-rag and 
cajole men into forcing upon the more numerous 
and influential body of their saner sisters some- 
thing they do not want; and it speaks badly for 
the intelligence and manliness of the men of the 
country that so many have been found to favor 
their unjust and oppressive scheme against the 
majority of womankind. 

When a majority manifest their opposition to a 
scheme to change existing conditions, it is equiva- 
lent to a consent to the continuance of them. 



I have had suffragettes say to me with touching 
earnestness: "Are we not both human beings? 
Why should you have a vote and not I?" With 
equal logic I might answer: "True, we are both 
human beings; then why should you wear your 
hair long when I have to have mine cut; or why 
should your limbs have the freedom of skirts 
while I have to confine mine in inartistic trousers?" 

With what touching declamation have I heard 
47 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

womenly orators proclaim that without the vote 
the women of our State were reduced to the level 
of infants, lunatics, paupers, aliens, criminals, and 
condemned murderers. Bosh! 

Though, from motives of public policy for all 
citizens and out of special consideration for them, 
women are relieved from voting and many other 
duties incumbent upon male citizens, they are, 
nevertheless, citizens of the State endowed with 
all the privileges of men, and more besides. She 
can sue for breach of promise of marriage and 
get something — can he? It would take too much 
space to enumerate all the advantages over men 
that women have under our statutes. There are 
so many of them that I have never heard a suffra- 
gette make room for any in her public speeches. 



The claim is also made that without the vote 
women are deprived of political influence. The 
Statutes of the State of New York give abundant 
proof of the benign influence of brainy, conscien- 
tious, womanly women upon our written laws. I 
admit that you will never hear either in public or 
in private any advocate of the cause tell the truth 
about the laws of New York State in regard to 
women. Yet, these laws stand there witnessing 
to the full appreciation by the Legislators that 
they represented their women constituents just as 
much as any others, and witnessing as well as to 
48 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

the effective political influence of women and to 
the pitiful mendacity of so many apostles of the 
" Cause." 

Furthermore the vote is not needed to give 
ample opportunities to women in the various 
occupations to which they may see fit to devote 
themselves. There are many who have won suc- 
cess and distinction in letters, in art, in finance, 
and all the other higher callings. 

Very few of them, however, are in the ranks of 
the suffragettes. Most of them are pronounced 
in their opposition to it. In fact there are few 
women of distinction who favor it except such as 
have gained their prominence by reason of their 
advocacy of it. Nevertheless it is a favorite 
argument that votes for women will give each and 
every woman a better chance to live her own life, 
to have her individual career. That it will create 
somehow an equality of opportunity between the 
sexes. That can never be. To enter upon a fife 
career a man has not to fight against his own 
higher nature; he has to stifle no imperative call 
of his very existence ; he need to do no violence to 
the laws of either his physical or moral being. He 
enters upon it untrammeled. Can she? If not, 
she has a terrible handicap that no right to vete 
can ever free her from or even mitigate. 

Let us not forget that there is one career — or 
it may better be turned "calling" — upon which 
49 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



a woman may enter with no such handicaps; but 
like any career, her success in it is dependent upon 
her natural fitness, her careful training and prep- 
aration, and her prosecution of it with her whole 
heart. 

Though terms of mone} r are incapable of ex- 
pressing them, her possible rewards are greater 
than any other human being can ever receive. 
No other success can bring the same blessed satis- 
faction nor confer so great a blessing on the race. 
And in other " careers". 

After all, what is it to add a few acres more or 
less of paint-covered canvas to the thousands of 
other acres already in existence, unless by it 
some great message is conveyed! And to how 
few, how very, very few, ever comes the real 
message, the real inspiration? To practically all, 
how disappointing the final result. 

And of the writers, the flood of useless books 
show how few have the moral courage to refrain 
unless they, too, have a real vital message. The 
urging of a mere " furor scribendi" often sounds 
too much like a real inspiration. Whatever her 
occupation, particularly when not taken up 
through necessity, but through the desire to escape 
natural destiny, how bizarre her achievements in it 
when compared with the results, upon itself and 
upon the lives it comes in contact with, of the 
50 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

blessed influence of the life of a gentle womanly 
woman. 



There are those few who, driven by the cruel 
spur of real genius, attempt the unusual; by such, 
happiness is usually knowingly forfeited, whatever 
the sex. 

But they say: "The old order is changing. 
More and more women are being driven or se- 
duced from their homes by modern economic 
conditions. " It is true that improved methods 
and implements do relieve the modern mother, 
wife and home-maker from many of the duties 
and drudgeries to which she was formerly sub- 
jected, but it is an insult to woman's intelligence 
to claim that there are not sufficient ways in 
which she can exert her energies thus liberated 
without foregoing her womanliness. It is true 
that necessity has forced many women to do 
men's work. 

That so many are to-day engaged in business 
pursuits is one of the unhealthy symptoms of the 
times. Unhealthy because it is not in accordance 
with the natural order of things and has a de- 
teriorating effect upon both women and men. 
History has abundantly shown that when any 
civilization goes contrary to the basic principles 
of human nature sooner or later a readjustment 
is bound to come that costs human beings very 
dearly. 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

I have heard it confidently asserted that, 
"Women are natural housekeepers: Government 
is a matter of house-keeping, therefore women are 
perfectly competent to run the government." 
This claim shows a fundamental ignorance of 
what Government really is. True some of its 
subsidiary developments are in a way analagous 
to house-keeping, but its essential function is the 
maintenance of Law and Order. Upon that, the 
development of all social processes depends. 
That is not a matter to be fooled with by preten- 
tious women. 

There is also the assertion that the individual 
and not the family is now the social and economic 
unit. That the wife as well as the husband 
is an individual and as such should vote. Now 
let me again remind the readers that Society, 
speaking broadly, is chiefly concerned with those 
upon whom the future of the race depends. The 
rest of us are mere isolated entities not in the 
stream of life. 

Marriage has been termed in law a matrimonial 
partnership. Any partnership of two is a union 
of two individuals in which, for the purpose of 
the partnership, the two individuals are merged 
into one. Each partner has different functions; 
where each wants to do the same things M the 
other, perform the same functions, there is trouble 
from the start. 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

Usually one attends to the inside or office work, 
the other is known as the " outside man." It is 
the latter who usually represents the firm, which 
is regarded as an entity. There is, or should be-, 
no jealousy between them, for each is equally 
essential to the success of their mutual enter- 
prise. This does not mean, however, that each 
may not take a helpful interest in the work of 
the other. 

Now in the case of the marital partnership, there 
is a feature that does not exist in any other. The 
State in effect guarantees to the wife the due per- 
formance of his part of the contract by the hus- 
band, and only in a very slight degree guarantees 
that she will also make good. The State is 
vitally interested in the probable result of the 
partnership, the children; and it is for their sake 
that it is made so binding. The family is thus 
more than the association of two individuals in a 
partnership; it is an economic and political unit 
and is so recognized by the State, even if not by 
the suffragists, and the husband is the outside 
partner. 

Now the fact that the husband does the out- 
side work, and the wife the inside work, has led 
the suffragette orators and writers into two errors. 
As he receives money for his wares, whether they 
be his labor or merchandise, and she does not, 
they are pleased to say that the two are not on 
53 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

terms of economic equality, and furthermore, as 
the wife contributes no money to the firm, that 
she is a social parasite, living on her husband. 
They forget, do Mrs. Gilman and the others, that 
in a partnership everything is owned in common 
and that the State, when necessary, recognizes 
the right of the wife in her husband's earnings. 

There are, however, parasitic wives. One such 
case I will instance. The husband was at the 
time of the marriage a hardworking capable young 
lawyer making a very fair income in partnership 
with another lawyer, not, however, enough to 
meet the many extravangancies of his wife. 

She had some faculty for writing and thought 
in that way to add to the family exchequer, to 
justify her expenditures. Most unfortunately 
she took a first prize with one of her stories, and 
thereupon became no longer much of a mother 
and housewife, but rather a talented author. 
She had long been an ardent suffragette. There 
were two children and he was an affectionate 
father, and when her absorption in her literary 
pursuits was so intense that she had little time 
for the children he tried to make up for this, to 
them, with the result that he lost more and more 
time at the office. 

So matters went on, he attending to household 
affairs more and more, that it was really her part 
of the contract to attend to, while she reveled in 
54 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

the individuality and separateness of her literary- 
career. Presently his business partner, unwilling 
to do extra work any longer, and not in the least 
sympathetic with the wife's idea of economic in- 
dependence, broke off the partnership. By this 
the unfortunate husband's income dropped by 
an amount several times greater than her earnings 
from her career. Did she repent her of her 
course? Not much. She told her friends that 
her husband was lazy and incompetent and that 
were it not for her earnings the family would 
starve. The end is not quite yet. She was 
what can properly be termed a parasitic wife. 

There is another who neglects her home and 
family and spends his money largely on railroad 
fares and hotel bills on suffragette business. I 
have heard her talk eloquently about poor, 
abused, spiritless, parasitic women. 

After a certain development of the fever, a 
suffragette becomes almost a hopeless case. It 
may be that after it has had its run the fever 
may abate, but it may take a long time. 



55 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



CHAP. XII 

When the great war is over there are going to 
be some very interesting developments among the 
women of the combatting nations who have taken 
the places in the various industries of the fighting 
men. The suffragettes claim as a prime reason 
for giving women the vote here that in those 
countries the women who have taken up the work 
of the absent men have become so accustomed to 
it that they will insist on retaining the places 
after the men have returned and further that they 
will insist upon having the ballot and will get it. 
That then this country will be found lagging in 
the march of progress unless we give women the 
votes in the meantime. I think that their prem- 
ises are mistaken. 

Those patriotic women have taken up the ab- 
sent men's work as a duty, and not from any dis- 
satisfaction with their own normal functions. 
Those fortunate ones to whom their men return 
will be only too glad to resume their normal 
places in the homes and families and leave to the 
men their proper duties of providing and hus- 
banding. As for the others, it may be their sad 
lot to continue their enforced drudgery. Condi- 
tions in this country are happily different and let 
us hope they may remain so. The reward for 
patriotic service should not be slavery. 
56 



VOTES FOR WOMEN. WHY? 

But there is one of their many other arguments, 
so-called, that deserves attention. They state 
that men have made such a muddle of our gov- 
ernmental matters, national and State, that we 
should give the women a chance to see what they 
can do. In the thirty-eight years since I became 
a voter there have been great improvements 
effected in New York State and in the United 
States, as every intelligent man knows. What 
has been accomplished from the beginning of our 
National Government is wonderful. It began on 
a new and untried principle, some modifications 
of its original plan have been found to be neces- 
sary as was to be expected. It is wonderful that 
there were not more. 

Under its broad provisions the country has 
grown from a comparatively narrow strip along 
the Atlantic coast inhabited by a population 
small, and not entirely homogenous. It has stood 
the violent test of a presidential contest every 
four years. It has waged within its own borders, 
between its own citizens of different sections, a 
four years' bloody war, greater in point of num- 
bers involved than any of recent history until 
the awful conflict that is now raging. After that 
terrific struggle of brother against brother, the 
sundered parts came together and the rapidity 
and thoroughness with which the awful wound 
has healed shows the soundness of its constitution 
57 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

and the vigorous health of its entire body. We 
have received to our citizenship millions after 
millions of foreign people, whose training, habits, 
and manner of thought were widely foreign to 
ours; our rapid assimilation of them, while not 
yet entirely complete, is to the candid mind 
amazing. 

Materially we have prospered wonderfully. 
Educationally, our advance, considering the mass 
of illiterate strangers we have received has been 
marvelous. In all this improvement of conditions, 
women as women have benefited equally with 
men as men. So that for the past we have little 
to apologize for. It is not safe to give the vote 
to any who cannot see all this. 

Safe, though, we have come thus far, it may 
be that in the near future we may be subjected 
to more acute and severe tests, both foreign 
and domestic, than we have ever before faced. 
In such an event it is inconceivable that women's 
votes would aid us. They would only hamper, 
annoy, and clog, and render almost hopeless the 
solution of many of our greatest political problems. 

We have enough ignorant or worse voters 
already in our overcharged electorate without 
increasing the volume of them. 



5S 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



CHAP. XIII 

So far this discussion has been concerned 
chiefly with a broad if terse consideration of some 
of the principal reasons for their demand as given 
by the suffragists themselves, and with that, the 
fundamental Laws of Nature, which they seem- 
ingly ignore, and the ideals cherished bj r most of 
us that they would shatter and destroy. Most 
of the women who are enlisted in the " Cause' ' 
have at the best but an incoherent, hysterical 
conception of what benefit they or their sex will 
gain should the franchise be extended to include 
them. How often have I heard, in effect : "Well, 
at all events it is bound to come. And when we 
get the vote there will be sure to come some good 
out of it," and invariably claiming that as a matter 
of simple justice women should be enfranchised. 

One of their ablest writers, Mr. Nathaniel C. 
Fowler, in his recent book, "The Principle of 
Suffrage," employs the same typical argument. 
He writes: 

"If I knew that universal suffrage would set 
my country back a hundred years, if I were assured 
that universal suffrage would turn political mud 
into political slime, if I were certain that universal 
suffrage would multiply grog shops and lower 
millions to the level of the gutter, if I had evidence 
that universal suffrage would upset this country 
59 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



of ours, cause the public schools to deteriorate 
and other great institutions to lower their stan- 
dard, I should cast my ballot in favor of votes 
for women, feeling it a duty to God and to man." 
One would think from reading this that Mr. 
Fowler had gained his knowledge of political 
science from study of the subject at a certain 
Woman's College, whose graduates seem to be 
imbued with this same theory, that also seems to 
be generally held among the suffragettes, namely, 
that the object of Government is to furnish a 
field for individual exploitation. It is not. 

Government exists to give to the community 
or communities within its jurisdiction, such a 
management of its public affairs as to render the 
collective State over which it is established, secure 
both from attacks from without and from domes- 
tic troubles within its borders, and also to give 
to each citizen belonging to it so much of indi- 
vidual liberty and privilege as is consistent with 
the liberties and privileges of every other citizen, 
individually and collectively. In this light and 
for the furtherance of these ends, the extension or 
limitation of the franchise is clearly not a matter of 
individual right, but of Public Policy. If then, 
the use of the ballot by women would result in 
any of the evils Mr. Fowler enumerates, it would 
be plainly contrary to Public Policy to extend the 
franchise to include them. 
60 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

As a matter of fact, among the western states 
that have adopted " Votes for Women" just 
exactly such results as he alludes to, are found. 

Utah, the central one of the cluster is a Mormon 
state. It is unnecessary to say more than that 
except to call attention to the fact that in the 
adjacent states, the Mormon influence is very 
strong, and that influence is all for suffrage, so it 
is very natural that such states should be for suf- 
frage. Mormons have a very effective way of 
managing their women. 

Colorado in which woman suffrage has been 
established so many years that it is no longer an 
experiment, is probably the state that Mr. Fowler 
had in mind when he wrote. The general impo- 
tency of its State government has been pretty 
well shown during the last few years; while the 
local government of the City of Denver, by the 
direct influence of women's votes has had a some- 
what variegated record. 

The legislation in the state of California since 
its women have voted, has been chaotic, to say 
the least, and its state and local governments have 
deteriorated. In Seattle, in still another suffrage 
state, a condition prevails, under suffrage that 
almost demands the formation of a vigilance 
committee, in which of course women would ha vi- 
no part. Such conditions, if continued lend to 
61 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 

public disorder and social disintegration, which the 
women will look to the men to correct. 

In most of those states bordering on Utah, the 
Mormons hold the balance of power, intrenched 
in it by the votes of their women. Their church 
is rich in money and resources, secret in its 
organization, with a great membership thoroughly 
knit together, and if reports be true, growing fast, 
aided by the political strength given it by womens 
votes. These facts I leave to the consideration 
of those who consider the further extension of the 
franchise a trivial matter, only adding that 
polygamy, while not openly practiced where the 
laws are against it, is the law of the church in its 
Mexican possessions. Nor so far as known have 
its secret oaths, obligations, and purposes been 
altered one whit. 

But aside from that issue, if these conditions 
hold in the Western States and cities under woman 
suffrage, what is to prevent similar results if that 
suffrage is extended over the entire country? 

I am no alarmist; I simply believe in waking 
up and looking facts squarely in the face. 



62 



VOTES FOR WOMEN, WHY? 



CHAP. XIV 

When a nation is asked to change from a sound, 
tested position to an untried and probably peri- 
lous one, there should be adduced absolutely con- 
vincing arguments in its favor before such a 
change can be sanely made. In the present issue, 
no such arguments have been brought forward. 
There are none. 

Government is, broadly speaking, concerned 
with two things, regulation and protection. If it 
is to be effective in either or both of these direc- 
tions, experience has shown that it must have 
virility, not the bogus virility of the emasculated 
man or of the masculine woman, but that of the 
real vigorous man. 

Will the general participation in our govern- 
ment of women, on the proposed basis, enhance 
or diminish that essential quality? To any 
reasonable mind there can be but one answer, 
"No." 

The question then becomes the simple but 
momentous one, "Shall our Country meet 
the perils that are even now threatening, with an 
emasculated Government, or not?" 

My fellow countrymen and countrywomen, all 
citizens, the answer rests with you. 



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